


advanced volcanology

by coffeesuperhero



Category: Volcano (1997)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, F/F, F/M, News Media
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 20:51:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5470406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeesuperhero/pseuds/coffeesuperhero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's life after Mount Wilshire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	advanced volcanology

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Merfilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, merfilly!

*  
Excerpt from Katia Roland's _The Eruption of Civic Science: How the Mount Wilshire Disaster Could Lead to a More Perfect Union Between Science and the Law_ ; Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy (1999), 79-95. 

On April 25th, 1997, Mount Wilshire exploded onto to the Los Angeles skyline in a dazzling but deadly display of nature's incredible power to simultaneously create and destroy. Thousands were injured in the initial eruption alone, with more to follow in the subsequent blasting that diverted the lava flow into the Pacific, and the structural fires that raged on in the aftermath. In the months following the tragedy, disaster analysts noted that given the population of Los Angeles and the location of the eruption site, casualties from the eruption could have easily totaled in the thousands.1 Repeatedly, analysts, commentators, and government officials have acknowledged that but for the involvement of a handful of scientists and city employees, the events of April 25th might have been all the more deadly. 

The rapport2 between geologist Dr. Amy Barnes and OEM Director Mike Roark saved lives, as well as the homes and livelihoods of thousands of Los Angeles citizens. Though Barnes has claimed in multiple interviews that it was Roark's practicality and quick thinking that saved the citizens of Los Angeles, Roark has been just as quick to assert that without having Barnes present to interpret what was happening around them. 

In a television interview3 shortly after the first Mount Wilshire eruption, Barnes and Roark discussed the tense moments of that early morning battle with Earth's most destructive forces.

>   
>  Host: So you're saying it was good to have a scientist on your team, that day?  
>  Roark: On my team? I think I was lucky to be on hers. I'll tell you what I told her right after the Beverly Center dropped on top of me: if she'd been in charge we would have known about this forty-eight hours in advance.  
>  Barnes: Twenty-four.  
>  Roark: What?  
>  Barnes: You said "twenty-four."  
>  Roark: You seem pretty sure about that.  
>  Barnes: Yes.  
>  Roark: I thought scientists didn't do certainty.  
>  Barnes (smiling): Only when we have enough evidence.  
>  Roark: That's good to know.  
>  Host: I don't want to break this up, but I have to ask, Mr. Roark: as the head of OEM, you were in charge of the city during the crisis. Are you saying we could have predicted this? Roark: I'll let the scientist answer that, but without the science, and having someone there who I could trust to explain it, none of us would be sitting here today. 

Roark's statement exemplifies the need for civically minded science. Civic science encourages the honing and translating of scientific inquiries into policy goals, which lawmakers and government officials can then use to effectuate better laws based on sound science. Civic science encourages scientific work to grow past the academy and into the world, where it can solve problems, improve processes, and, in the case of Mount Wilshire, ultimately protect people. Civically minded scientists have purposely sharpened their relational skills and are often adept at putting complex scientific concepts into lay terms. Barnes is a good example of this kind of scientist-- a person who can offer legislators a bridge between the hypothetical nature of scientific inquiry and the sometimes equally speculative nature of governance.

Preliminary data suggest a shallow magma chamber exists underneath Mount Wilshire, approximately seven kilometers below the surface.4 It was this chamber that likely fueled the eruption events of April 25, 1997, and will cause more eruptions in the future. Managing the continuing threat of this active volcano will mean closer work for the CIGS and the Los Angeles city government, including the OEM, as policymakers and scientists alike unite to keep the people of the city safe. 

1 _Effective Disaster Management: Lessons from Mount Wilshire, Center for Disaster and Risk Analysis_ (October 1997). The report is the first of many to highlight Dr. Amy Barnes, Dr. Rachel Lockwood, and the LA Office of Emergency Management team, headed in the field by Mike Roark, as the primary personnel behind the success of the disaster's management.

2 Critics of the theory of civic science have postulated that this "rapport" had far less to do with any civic-mindedness on Barnes' part and far more to do with a personal connection to Roark. 

3 "The Today Show," May 25, 1997 (video recording and complete transcript on file with author). 

4 Lockwood, Rachel Conrad, Mapping the magma chamber under Mount Wilshire-- Los Angeles, California, _Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Physics_ , 1999, 201, 22.   
*

It's early morning in Los Angeles, and Rachel Lockwood quietly sips at her second coffee of the day as the sun rises over Mount Wilshire. Beneath her feet, the volcano slumbers quietly, a silent contrast to its explosive birth exactly one year ago. Later this afternoon, the mayor and assorted dignitaries will stand at the base of this sleeping giant and celebrate the renewal of the city in the face of the disaster that took it by surprise the year before. Amy will be in attendance, as will Roark, but Rachel's hoping to watch the celebration from the television in the lab. The LA skyline may have changed in a year, but her reticence to jump in front of a camera definitely hasn't. 

She finishes her samples, carefully settling everything away in her pack before picking her way to more solid ground. With a nod to the guards that now patrol the perimeter of the active volcano, keeping intrepid citizens (mostly teenagers) from finding themselves in the kind of trouble she and Amy were in a year ago today, she climbs in the van and sets out for the CIGS offices. As the tires bump over the long-cooled lava flow that covers Wilshire Boulevard, her thoughts wander back to a year ago, when she was fighting for her life against the primordial powers that shaped this planet. 

It's good to be a survivor. Even after coming so close to death, after months of nightmares and the way her breath is still sometimes a gasp when she feels the earth shake beneath her, even after all of that, it is good to be here, alive. The volcano did not defeat her: she comes back to it, time and again, to study and learn, as fascinated by it now as she ever was as a child. Studying these phenomena is all she has ever really wanted to do, and though they can be awesome and terrifying, for her, there is a magnificence to them that trumps all her fears. 

Still, over the past year, she's traded dodging lava bombs for dodging reporters, and that has in many ways been worse for her. Before the volcano, when it was just CIGS and seismic activity, Amy was always there, strong and self-assured, to stand and face the scrutiny of the reporters and the public. Now, that isn't always the case. For months after the volcano rose up out of the earth, journalists hungry for their shot at a Pulitzer Prize or a plum anchor job chased her into her office, into her apartment, asking her how she felt, what she was thinking, what the science has to say about LA's future. 

When she gets back to the lab, she can see through the plexiglass on Amy's office door that Amy's already there, talking away to someone-- not Roark, Rachel knows, because she's not _smiling_. She waves; Amy waves back, then returns to her phone call. Rachel can tell from way she's gesturing that she's walking a layperson through something scientifically complicated, and she has to smile, because she doesn't know how Amy does it. 

She isn't Amy. Amy wants to _explain_ , she wants people to _understand_. She wants to gather everyone in the city into her office and give them the benefit of all of her training and all of her knowledge. Rachel just wants to be left alone with her data.

She hasn't been in the lab for five minutes when the door opens and Amy comes in.

"Look at this nonsense," Amy says, waving a newspaper around. "They printed a special anniversary edition. _A year after Mount Wilshire: Los Angeles Remembers_." 

She holds up the paper so Rachel can see. Above the fold, in full color, Amy and Mike Roark debate the possibility of damming the lava while around them volcanic ash clogs the air. 

Rachel coughs sympathetically for her past self as she remembers the thickness and the heat of the ashy air that morning, when they had heaved themselves, hearts pounding, out of the storm drain into Macarthur Park. A year hasn't erased that memory, and she doubts much will. 

Amy clears her throat, and Rachel returns to the lab. 

"Sorry. You were saying?" 

Amy brandishes the paper once more. "The caption under this damn photograph. 'Heroic duo Mike Roark and Amy Barnes discuss their plans to dam the lava on Wilshire Boulevard. Heroic duo, my ass. It's been a year and they still can't get the facts straight. So much for journalistic integrity." 

"I think _that_ ship sailed a long time ago," Rachel points out. "And it's cute that you still get so angry about this, by the way." 

"You were there, too!" 

"Sure. I climbed in a hole, nearly got incinerated, reminded you about Iceland and the dams, then when it was all over I went home, cried a lot, and got a therapist," Rachel shrugs. "It's not a good story to tell on camera. Not when I tell it." 

"You also wrote an article and spoke at an NSF conference," Amy reminds her.

"Yes," Rachel agrees, blushing at the memory, "And then I walked offstage and threw up. That's all the fame I can handle." 

"Hey, pal, don't be so hard on yourself. At least you didn't throw up on stage this time." 

"Ha. Seriously, Amy, leave me out of the spotlight, okay? Somebody has to go explain the science to the rest of the world, but does it have to be me?" 

"Come with me to this anniversary thing," Amy says. "Come on. You can face a volcano with me but you can't face some harmless cameras?" 

"Yes," Rachel says. "I will pick the volcano over the cameras every time." 

Amy pretends to pout. "Even over me?" 

"Definitely over you," Rachel jokes. 

"Uh huh. Listen, you should do the interview," Amy says, sliding off the counter and heading for the door. "Otherwise it's just me and Roark." 

"Is that a problem?" 

"Not yet," Amy calls back, and Rachel smiles. 

*  
_USGS Names New Regional Director_

Dr. Amy Barnes, formerly Director of the California Institute of Geological Sciences, will soon be heading the Pacific Regional office of the United States Geological Survey. 

Despite her early pioneering work in the field of geology, Barnes is best known for her heroic efforts to save the city of Los Angeles during the initial eruption of Mt. Wilshire in 1997. She has been at CIGS for eleven years. 

"This is an exciting opportunity to continue the work that I've been doing in California, but on a larger scale," Barnes commented. 

"We are thrilled to have someone as dynamic and ingenuitive as Dr. Barnes heading the Regional office," reported Dr. Maurice Glicken, former Pacific Regional Director, who retired earlier this year. Glicken and Barnes, along with Barnes' colleague Rachel Conrad Lockwood, worked together closely in the aftermath of the initial Mount Wilshire eruption. "She has a keen intellect, and she's proven time and again that she can cooperate with public officials before, during, and after significant geologic events." 

The Pacific Region encompasses California, Hawaii, and Nevada. Barnes will be overseeing a region known for several other active geological phenomena, including the infamous San Andreas Fault, Mauna Loa, and Kilauea, one of the most active volcanoes in the world. 

*

The thing about living with Mike Roark, Amy has learned, is that there's never a dull moment. There are floods, mudslides, earthquakes, and frequently, literal fires to put out. Today, for example, she's home packing for a vacation for both of them because some city worker ruptured a gas line near UCLA, and Roark still doesn't know how not to work. 

And she loves it. 

Rachel likes to tell her that her previous romantic entanglements-- theirs included-- never lasted because Amy's actions were always greater than her partner's ability to _react_ , thus violating Newton's third law, and therefore totally impossible. Amy had always just thought she was being a geek, and told her so; Rachel's response was always just to laugh and shake her head like she knew life would prove her theory to be correct. And then Mount Wilshire happened, and Roark happened, and now Amy wakes up every day next to someone who is definitely an equal and opposite force, and it's good and exciting in a way that nothing else has ever been, so perhaps Rachel, although definitely a geek, was right all along. 

"QED, pal," Amy mutters, smiling, as she tosses more clothes into a suitcase, wondering how many hours of this working vacation to Hawaii she will manage to spend with Roark, since she's just as bad as he is about working.

Roark. Last name, term of endearment, and epithet, all in one. It's still Roark, to her, not Mike, not Michael, just Roark, even after all these years, and she's still Barnes. Sometimes he calls her _Amy_ in his sleep and it sounds strange in her ears. If she was the type to doodle hearts in margins, it would _R &B_, not _M &A_. 

They're not married. Her choice, and not one he liked. For the first few years, he asked, twice a year, like clockwork. And every year she would say no, because this is real for her without any of the hullabaloo of marriage, and anyway, isn't a piece of paper pretty insignificant compared to the trust they built in those tense moments on Wilshire Boulevard? So she would point that out, and he would counter with some moderately romantic nonsense, and they would argue it out and sleep in separate bedrooms for a day and then forget about it for another year, until the whole thing would start all over again. 

At least, she once remarked wryly over dinner one evening, theirs was an eruption cycle she could accurately predict. 

But a relationship is not a volcano, or at least, she doesn't want this one to be. So last year for Christmas she gave him a ring and got herself one to match, simple platinum bands with the word _certainty_ inscribed on the inside. Though she made it very clear that it wasn't in any way a proposal or an acquiescence, he in turn had made it very clear that this was more than just an acceptable compromise, and the old argument has been dormant ever since. 

By the time Roark has his fires put out-- thankfully, no literal fires this time, he tells her-- she has two suitcases packed and ready for their trip. 

"So are we going to manage an actual vacation this time?" 

"I don't know," Amy says, grinning up at him. "Do you think you can stop attracting disasters for five minutes?" 

"Nothing I can do about that, now, that's out of my hands," he says, and she just laughs.

This has been an ongoing joke since they met, because it seems like every time they go somewhere, some emergency arises nearby and they end up involved: helping someone change a flat tire, making sure a lost kid finds her parents, and once even directing traffic in one of the busiest intersections in LA on the way home from Amy's birthday dinner. Even Kelly affectionately calls him _Disaster Magnet_ now. 

Amy doesn't mind, really. She enjoys watching him work. But it is pretty funny, how disaster follows him around. 

"What about that child of mine, is she meeting us there?"

"She's in her first year of med school, she can't just drop everything to come to Hawaii," Amy reminds him. 

Mike frowns, but it's a proud frown, somehow. "You talk to her? How's she doing?" 

"She's good." 

"Yeah? How's the boyfriend, the German?" 

"He's not German, Roark, he's from Jersey, he's in college." 

"Then why do I think he's German?" 

"I don't know," Amy says, and then reconsiders. "He's an Uber driver on the weekends. What, did you think he was Nietszche?" 

Mike ignores the dig, which is rare, but when it comes to Kelly and her safety, Mike has always been like a dog worrying a bone. "What the hell is an Uber?" 

"It's like a taxi service without a license." 

"Isn't that illegal?" 

"Sometimes," Amy shrugs. "Not in San Francisco. Kelly did explain this to you the last time we were there." 

He shakes his head. "I've told you before, if it doesn't blow up, crash down, catch fire, or flood, I don't pay any attention to it." 

"That much is clear," she drawls.

"Do I, or do I not, pay attention to you?" 

"You do," Amy acknowledges, "But I'm not going to ask which of those four categories I fall into." 

Roark's laughter follows her out the door. 

*  
_Roark to step down, city names new OEM Director_

The Los Angeles Office of Emergency Management will be saying goodbye to the legendary Mike Roark, who is retiring after nearly twenty years of service. 

Taking over at the helm of OEM will be Emmit Reese, who served under Mike as Assistant Director for seven years before moving to San Francisco to head the Bay Area's emergency operations team. 

Roark reports that he's looking forward to spending more time with his family, including long-time girlfriend Dr. Amy Barnes and his daughter, Kelly, who he proudly notes will graduate from medical school next year and has plans to become a pediatrician.

"It's exciting to be back in LA with the old team," Reese said, discussing his long absence from Southern California. "I learned so much from Mike while I was here, and I know it made me a better director in San Francisco. I'm proud to be back-- but I don't think people like Mike ever really retire," Reese added. "I'm expecting him to be at my desk on my first day like it's still his."

*

It is the last morning that Mike Roark will make the drive to the LA OEM offices. 

_Retirement_. 

A four-letter word if he's ever heard one. 

Emmit's ready to take charge, he knows that. He's just not sure that _he's_ ready. But he gets into the car anyway, because he's made this decision and he's standing by it. Even so, he lets the engine idle for a few moments, thinking over the last twenty years of fires, floods-- and, of course, the volcano. It's strange to be grateful to a thing that causes so much heartache, but Mount Wilshire gave him a new chance at a family and a sense of perspective. For that, as strange as it seems, he is grateful. 

The day is uneventful, which means it's a good day in emergency management, but he still can't help but feel like the city's on its best behavior on today of all days just to spite him. Before he knows it, it's quitting time, and the staff has thrown him a party. The mayor's there and she hands him a watch and there are photographs and handshakes and then various other people he should probably speak to, but since he's retiring he figures he doesn't have to schmooze with people he only pretends to like, so he looks around and finds Amy instead. 

"Nice party," she says, holding up her drink. 

"It would be, if it wasn't for me," he says. 

"You told me to tell you, if you got like this, that you had plans for retirement that included fishing and actually going to Kelly's graduation ceremony," Amy reminds him. "And don't make that face," she adds, as his brow starts to furrow. "I'm just the messenger." 

Before he can reply, the glasses on the table next to them start to rattle; soon, the whole room is shaking. He can't help it, he's assessing the room before the quake is over, and when it is and he finds his feet again, he looks from Amy to the hallway that will take him to the control room and back again. 

"Go," she says, laughing. "You know you want to." 

He does. 

"What've we got?" he asks Emmit, who is already there with his headset on. 

"Mount Wilshire," Emmit says, and before Mike gets much further, he continues, "and it's minor. Minor for a volcano, anyway, look, Mike, I'm already on the phone with the chief of police, I'm on the phone with the fire department, we're diverting traffic and we're rerouting planes as a precautionary measure--" 

"Did you think you might want to evacuate some homes at some point, Emmit?" Mike asks. 

"We did that two days ago, Mike, I got this," Emmit says, adjusting his headset. "Time to let the new director of OEM go to work." 

"The new director of OEM doesn't officially start for six more hours," Mike counters, checking the watch the mayor had just given him as a retirement present. As he does, though, he sees the ring Amy gave him, years before, and he looks up to find that she's standing in the doorway to the control room. She gives him a thumbs up and a smile, and he turns back to Emmit and holds out his hand. "It looks like Mount Wilshire had other plans for you, Director. Good luck, Emmit. You won't need it." 

"Thank you, Mike," Emmit replies, shaking Mike's hand. "I had a good teacher." 

"You're a natural," Mike tells him. "Now get to work." 

"Already on it," Emmit says, and turns back to the team.

"You're going to laugh at this," Amy says, when he reaches her, "but now _I_ have to go into the office. I'm already getting calls." 

"They need an expert, that's you," he says. 

"Hey Mike," Emmit calls, and they both turn around. "I've been thinking. Maybe sometimes when things are pretty tense around here, we might need a consultant. You know, somebody who's been around. You know anybody like that?" 

"Yeah, as a matter of fact, I do. Call her," Mike says, pointing at Amy, and they all laugh.

"Really, though," Amy says. "Call me. I'll have data for you soon." 

Downstairs, they can already hear the sirens of fire trucks and police cars racing to deal with this latest volcanic activity, and with traffic and the blooming ash cloud above them, it takes nearly ten minutes to get out of the parking garage and onto the street. Amy digs in the back seat for a moment and produces gas masks while Mike activates the siren on the SUV-- one remaining perk of his now former career that he hasn't turned in yet. They're a few minutes from the USGS offices when, predictably, disaster strikes: a lava bomb lands nearby, blocking traffic and setting a tree on fire. 

"Well, Roark," Amy says, her voice muffled through the filters of the mask, "looks like it's time to go to work." 

Behind his gas mask, he grins. Maybe this retirement thing won't be so bad after all.

**Author's Note:**

> The names of all original characters in this piece are amalgamations of the names of real life volcanologists, a small acknowledgment (through a story about a cheesy disaster movie) of everything they've done to advance our understanding of volcanoes, and save lives in the process.


End file.
